Note 1 — HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 2)

This whole presentation of Madame Hanska justifies, and even demands, a few words here. Judging her by the genuine letters in this volume,—which are, so far as I know, our only means of judging her at all at this distance of time,—she was a woman of principle, dignity, intelligence, and good-breeding; with a strong sense of duty, and a certain deliberateness of nature, shown in the fact that it was eight years after M. Hanski's death before she consented to marry Balzac. Her love for him was plainly much less than his for her; but she was proud of his devotion, and always unwilling to lose it. That a woman of her position and character ever wrote to Balzac those words, "Va aux pieds de ta marquise," is an impossibility. There are certain things that a woman of breeding cannot do or say; though some who do not know what such women are do not perceive this.

Writing a few weeks later than the above letter (from Geneva in January, 1834) to his intimate friend, Madame Carraud, Balzac bears the following little testimony to Madame Hanska's feeling to his friend: "I hope you know what the security of friendship is, and that you will not say to me again, 'Bear me in memory,' when some one here [Madame Hanska] says to me, 'I am happy in knowing that you inspire such friendships; that justifies mine for you.'" (Éd. Déf. vol. xxiv, p. 192). This is the woman whose memory a few men are now endeavouring to smirch.—TR.